the ghosts of me (in the ghosts of you)
by The Apocryphal One
Summary: It would be easier to hate him, Rey thinks angrily, if she didn't identify with him so damn much. Reylo.


A/N: Or: how I envision Rey changing her mind on Kylo would go.

It's not _quite_ shippy, there's just a bit near the end, but it's there.

 **i**

"Are you my father?" she asks Master Luke out of the blue one day, as they practice with the Force. She's been training with him for two months now, and while she can't quite say it's a niggling suspicion—more an errant hope—the thought that maybe _he's_ the family she's been waiting for won't leave her alone.

The boulder he's lifting in demonstration drops a few inches—she's surprised him. "No. I'm not."

"Oh," is all she can say to that. Disappointment, that old friend, twinges in her chest, and she bites her lower lip, feeling foolish.

His blue eyes are filled with apology. "I'm sorry, Rey. I wish I were."

She wishes he were, too. This— _thing,_ this _bond_ with Kylo Ren, would be so much easier to explain away if he were her cousin.

She can't remember when it started. Sometimes she feels waves of fury swallow her, make her want to slash and destroy everything in sight; other times hatred burns in her throat like acid, hatred enough to burn the galaxy down; still others guilt and despair so profound she wants to weep. Instinctively she knows, in those moments, she's feeling what _he_ is, and it angers her. She would have given anything for a family, and he'd thrown his away carelessly, as if they were worth no more than scrap. He'd murdered his own father for power. He _got_ what he wanted; how dare he feel conflicted over it?

More than that, why does she sense what he feels? If he were related to her, she could write it all off as some weird family thing and leave it at that. Now that armor of deluded hope lays broken on the ground, and she has nothing to protect herself with anymore. More anger washes through her, intensified by the rage she can feel from him.

She forces herself to push those Dark feelings away, though it's difficult. Maybe this is for the best, she tells herself. She'd spent so long hoping for a family reunion that she never imagined what would come after. If Master Luke were her father, she doesn't know whether she'd be joyful at finally finding him or resentful of him for hiding it or angry at him abandoning her in the first place. At least now there won't be any awkwardness muddling their working relationship.

They return to practice in silence, but Rey's thoughts still swirl inside her head, brewing like a storm on the horizon.

 **ii**

She finally tells Master Luke about these strange almost-feelings, three months in his company, over dinner. A weary look crosses his face. He looks so tired, so old. "It's a Force bond."

"What's that?" she asks, feeling stupid.

He frowns down at his bowl of soup, seemingly mulling over his words. The soft tapping of rain on the roof fills the silence—Rey has grown to love rain, feel the cool water on her skin, so refreshing after years of relentless sun and dry air. Finally, Master Luke speaks.

"It's a connection between two Force-sensitives—usually relatives or masters and apprentices, but it can occur outside that. Force-bonded individuals can sense each other, their thoughts and feelings, sometimes even communicate mentally. Somehow, the two of you must have forged one."

A memory leaps to her mind—the interrogation room. His mind brushing up against hers, pushing in, and hers pushing back. Wrestling back and forth, fighting to gain ground in his head, until something _clicked_ and she could see his innermost thoughts, and he hers, with a startling clarity. Two Force-users, one incompletely trained, one completely untrained, digging in each other's minds—was it possible for them to forge a bond by _accident_? She runs the question by Master Luke and he nods.

"It sounds like his presence is what awoke your powers. If that's the case, then yes, that could have been the moment it occurred. Especially if you were as deep in a mental battle as you say."

An _accident_ has done this to her. She doesn't know if that makes her want to laugh or curse.

"Is there a way to get rid of it?" she almost begs instead, because she had Kylo Ren in her head once before and that was enough. And that was _before_ she had to deal with his emotional turmoil, _before_ he awoke the vaguest stirrings of sympathy in her, _before_ she constantly had to remind herself that he'd brought this on himself.

Master Luke shakes his head _no._ "It'll only disappear when one of you dies, and even then, you'll still feel its absence, like a giant, gaping hole in your chest. People are never the same after they make a Force bond, Rey."

She thinks back over the past few months, recalling how her emotions have been flaring hotter in response to Kylo Ren's, and knows the truth of his words. Much as she dislikes having Kylo in her head, it would feel empty without him burning hot and dark. Briefly, she wonders how anyone can live like he does, with all that anger and sorrow and self-loathing and _negativity_ , day in, day out. Then she reminds herself that she doesn't care.

It may not be particularly Light of her, to dismiss compassion so ruthlessly, but it's better than feeling it for her enemy.

 **iii**

The following months have Master Luke honing her meditation, so she can calm and center herself even as Kylo Ren's white-hot emotions boil her blood, and telling her about him. About the boy Kylo Ren used to be.

He says Ben Solo was a quiet boy, living in the shadow of his family's greatness, shoulders burdened by their legacy before he could even walk. A boy with gangly limbs and a big heart and a drive to prove himself. A boy who was the most talented pupil Luke had ever trained, but who always strove to be _more_. A boy whose overconfidence was both a genuine flaw and a mask to hide his insecurity. A boy who was plagued by nightmares of dark things, whispering to him and haunting him when he went to sleep.

He tells her how that boy had wept for days when his parents left him with Luke, unable to understand why they would abandon him, even if it was for his own good, when the nightmares were at their worst. He'd needed them, and they hadn't been there. That, more than anything else, strikes a chord in her, as her mind flashes, briefly, to a young girl screaming at a departing ship, begging it to _come back._

She wants to hate Kylo Ren. It would be easier to hate him, Rey thinks angrily, if she didn't identify with him so damn much. If she didn't still see the ghost of Ben in his thoughts. If she didn't see _herself_ in that ghost.

Because she can relate to that, has known the pain of feeling cut off from your family, even if her abandonment were literal and his only perceived. They both know what it's like to wonder what you did wrong, whether there's something wrong with you to deserve this. And she knows the resentment and pain that causes, has felt it roiling in her gut her whole life. The temptation to weaponize that, use it to hurt others the way she had been hurt, is _there_ —she'd almost succumbed to it on Starkiller base. If Finn hadn't needed her help, she may have.

And that temptation was strong enough without a monster stalking and manipulating her. What chance, then, had a young, volatile boy had, with Snoke shadowing his every step? Despite herself, she feels pity and empathy overcome her loathing.

She knows Ben Solo and she mourns him, and she wants to hate Kylo Ren. But try as she might to separate them in her mind, she can feel echoes of Ben in Kylo Ren through the Force bond, and echoes of herself in those echoes.

They've already overlapped, and she can't tell where one ends and the other begins.

 **iv**

Six months into her training, she meets him again, in a dream.

No, that's not quite right. Her dreams are devoid of sensation, but here she can feel the wind whipping her hair and the snow pelting her face. The background has the muted, fuzzy quality of a dream, but Kylo Ren is sharp and clear, an edged black contrast against the snowy forest of Starkiller base. And her dreams have never created things she doesn't know, such the cut of Kylo's new robes or the scar bisecting his right cheek—her eyes trace over it, involuntarily, and he gives her something that has too many teeth to be called a smile.

"Admiring your handiwork?"

Rey nods once, crisply, aiming at flippancy. "It's an improvement."

Kylo Ren sniffs, the utter picture of disdain. "You got lucky. I was injured."

"Making excuses for your own failure to utilize the Dark?"

His mouth curls into an ugly sneer. "I _am_ Dark."

"Then why aren't your eyes golden?" she challenges.

The anger that spikes along their bond is her only warning. Kylo launches himself at her, lightsaber igniting in a blaze of red. Her heart picks up—she's only just forged her own, she doesn't know if it'll work—but it does, twin blue blades springing to life to block his. Their eyes lock for a heartbeat as they strain against each other, close enough to hear the hums of their weapons. His lightsaber is new, too, but just as unstable as the last, Rey notes. Finally, they push away from each other and start circling like manka cats, tense and waiting to pounce.

She moves first this time, swinging horizontally at his arm—he swats her blow aside almost contemptuously—and then they're spinning and striking, lost in a blur of motion that vaguely resembles a violent dance among the raging snowstorm.

"This is _your_ fault!" he screams over the clashing of their blades. "You're always in my head, you and your _damned_ Light. Every _day_ I feel you, your harmony and your joy and your _serenity_ , trying to stir up my weaker emotions, leeching me of power! All this is because of _you_!"

"That's a lie," she hisses. He aims a brutal overhand strike at her head. She parries it, but he presses down insistently, bringing the brunt of his weight down on her. Her arms and legs shake trying to hold their position. "It was there before me. You've _always_ had Light in you, Ben, I only woke it up."

"Ben Solo is _dead_!"

She kicks him in the shin— _dirty scavenger trick_ , he snarls in her head, but it works— drops him to a knee for just a moment, allowing her to break the bladelock. She sways to the side as his lightsaber cuts through empty space, then darts forward, bringing her double-bladed lightsaber to bear over his throat. Kylo stills, but resentment and anger spill over their bond—he's always so _angry_ , she thinks—a ticking time bomb.

And there's something else there, too. That hesitance again, that tiny feeling of _she's right_. She seizes it.

"No he's not," she says quietly, certainly. "I feel it. Every day I feel _you,_ your anger and your sorrow and your guilt. You're full of hate, but for _yourself_. For what you've done. For even regretting it, for being 'weak'. You were struggling with the Light long before our bond was forged. If Ben Solo were really dead, you wouldn't be."

He glares up at her from under his brows, breathing heavily from exertion. She meets his gaze, holds it steady, and in the end he's the one to break it. His eyes drop to her lips and linger there; she swallows. Rey starts to reach a hand out to him—

—and the dream dissolves like the morning mists that sometimes settle on Ahch-To.

 **v**

"Do you think he can come back?" she asks Master Luke the next morning, direct and blunt. In the back of her mind, she can hear Kylo screaming, raging, taking his anger out on his furniture, trying to bury how her words had affected him.

But the Light still lingers—grows even stronger, in fact. He can feel it, and so can she.

Master Luke's eyes meet hers steadily. "I think anyone can return to the Light, as long as they want to. Redemption is never out of reach for those who truly seek it. The real question, Rey, is if he _wants_ to return."

She mulls that over. "He's torn," she finally says, "between repressing his inner light and embracing it. He thought killing Han would end the indecision, but it made it worse. He doesn't think he can continue down the path he's chosen—but he doesn't think he can come back from it, either."

"He's wrong on that account." Master Luke clasps his hands and stares at her so intensely she thinks he can see the Force bond, tying her to Kylo across the stars.

"I won't ask you to help him, Rey. I don't think he's beyond help, but he's resistant to it. It would take a lot of time and effort to bring him back. I don't have the right to force anything onto you, and you shouldn't feel obligated to do something you don't want to."

Rey straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin. "I'd never let myself be coerced into anything. But you've taught me it's a Jedi's duty to help those who want to return to the Light. So long as I sense even a spark of good in him, I'll keep fighting to ignite it."

Luke smiles, pride etched onto his weathered features, and she knows she's made the right choice.


End file.
